1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the interconnection of electrical apparatus and more particularly to the safe interconnection of such apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is often desirous to interconnect an electrical component to a circuit so that it has a certain electrical polarity with respect to the circuit. This is particularly true for polarized components such as, for example, certain capacitors, batteries, diodes, rectifiers, PN junctions and the like.
If the components are incorrectly connected, i.e. with the polarity reversed, potential safety hazards may result such as non-operability of the associated circuit and/or damage or destruction of the polarized component and/or the other components of the associated circuit. For example, certain polarized tantalum capacitors, if incorrectly connected, can generate sufficient heat to cause the particular capacitor to burst into flame and as such constitute a potential fire hazard. Moreover, where the polarized component has no way of being discernable, because of their similarity, which of its component terminals are associated with which polarity, and/or where the components are not provided with identifying polarity markings for the terminals and/or where the terminals are incorrectly marked, the hazard potential is further increased.
It should be understood that while there are prior art electrical components which have asymmetrically and symmetrically disposed component terminals, cf. for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,945,163 and 3,444,436, respectively, and prior art foolproof devices for insuring correct polarity connection, cf. for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,339,169, none of the prior art references or devices of which I am aware, provide a bypass connection between the two circuit interconnection terminals using one of the component terminals as is done in my present invention.